A Dream of Gold and Bronze
by Diglossia
Summary: A bluerider finds himself trapped in Lessa's body and in bed with F'lar.


Inspired by Qfeiss' Remember Who You Are. Not largely, and maybe not even recognizably but she deserves credit regardless. Also inspired by a low-cut dress/shirt.

* * *

I awake. There is a pain between my legs that feels as though I have been gutted. I reach down- I am naked- and find smooth flesh, soft, yielding lips that do not belong to me. I reach up and find a hairless stomach, wide pelvic bones and small ribs. My chest has excess flesh, what I only know to call breasts. I do not need to feel my smooth jaw or my silky hair to know that everything is wrong.

A man, the most beautiful man I have ever seen, lies next to me, stretched out on the shared bed. He stirs and I look away, confused at my reaction. He seems vaguely familiar, like someone out of a dream I once had. Maybe this is all a dream, I tell myself; I will awaken soon, in my own bed, in my own skin, with my own weyrmate.

_What is wrong?_ A lilting golden voice whispers in my mind.

I sit up in shock, disturbing the man beside me. His face turns towards me. He sees my unclad form and the blankets around my now curvy hips, and smiles. He slips a hand around my waist and pulls me towards him, kissing my cheek.

"Sleep, Lessa, it is only a bad dream," he murmurs and turns back to slumber.

A coldness seeps through my bones just as a dull pain slides into my skull. My name is D'wer, rider of blue Trebeth, not Lessa. Never Lessa.

_But you are Lessa, mine_, the golden voice whispers again, _and I am Ramoth._

A shock causes me to shiver. Ramoth? The queen of Benden Weyr? This cannot be!

Then, I know, in desperate horror, that the man sleeping next to me is F'lar, the F'lar, whose Wing I always dreamed of joining. Faranth, help me! I was in the Werwoman's quarters next to the Weyrwoman's mate!

I reach out then, in disbelief, to Trebeth. I nearly cry when I feel his mind against mine.

_Trebeth, please, something is wrong, help me!_ I plead.

In the span of a second I hear his familiar wings beating against the morning air. He is coming, my wonderful Trebeth, to take me away from this nightmare. But then I hear a roar, a roar louder and more foreign than anything Trebeth has ever made.

It is Ramoth, the great queen, telling my darling to fly away from his rider. He is not needed.

Trebeth's mind is gone, that heartbeat of connection severed as Ramoth tries to comfort me. She calls me out of the bed to her, and I go.

Her size is shocking- I have only ever seen her at a distance- and her warbling assurances only upset me more. I begin to cry, tears falling against my naked chest, where they slip between the breasts that are not mine. F'lar appears and puts his arms around me. I do not push him away. I just cry, begging for this dream to be over.

F'lar murmurs words about a bygone time of drudgery and Ruatha Hold, about long-over abuse and harsh words. I have never been to Ruatha and my childhood was a pleasant one. I shake uncontrollably, ignoring Ramoth, ignoring F'lar, ignoring Mnementh, his bronze. Trebeth does not respond when I call him again. He hears me but Ramoth keeps him away.

I have never felt more misery in my whole existence.

ØØØ

I cry for the first three days and stay within the Weyr alone. F'lar leaves me there and has food brought to me. I eat little and rebuff his advances.

By the end of the first sevenday, I have made my appearance at the High Table. Kylara smiles a polite sneer at me, her heavy eyes and heavier belly too close for comfort. F'lar sits at the High Table as well and I am left to quiet as they talk. Every so often, Ramoth or F'lar ask me if I am well. I lie every time.

By the end of the first month, I see Trebeth while feeding. His familiar body soars easily atop the beasts and I watch, fascinated, as he devours one. Ramoth settles beside me, her golden bulk and jealousy a constant reminder of my bond to her. She says that I act odd and that I worry her. I pet her awkwardly. She is warm from sunbathing and rank from her large meals as any dragon but her femininity seeps through, and I cannot help shifting away after a half-candlemark in discomfort.

Lessa's small clothes fit perfectly in a way mine never would and I have become used to everything in the Weyr being a head and a half higher than before. The stairs are more difficult but Ramoth's weyr is at groundlevel and I rarely need to use them as it is. Oddly, I suddenly know how to write and read. Before, my own name was difficult to make out. I use this newfound ability to write what I remember from my life before: the way Trebeth smells after a bath, like sweet berries; the first green he ever caught, little Yalith; where I was born, a cotholding north of Benden Hold; my mother's favorite pie, redfruit with a little Benden white wine.

I still do not let F'lar touch me.

By the end of the fourth month, I can hide my pain from Ramoth. I tell her that my sleep has been bad, she says that I am with child. The growing bulge of my stomach confirms this, as does F'lar. It no longer astounds me: childbirth is a woman's thing and I am now a woman. F'lar worries and I am forced to let him embrace me. He touches me tenderly and we make love one night. The furs smell of sex and woman when I awake.

F'lar is so different from J'mil, my sometimes lover and weyrmate. F'lar is softer, more caring, and the sex is mind numbingly boring. He strokes my sides, too shy to touch even my breasts without asking. His lips never venture farther down than my neck and I almost laugh at how easily he comes inside me. F'lar does not understand when I push him off afterwards and announce that I will go study in the Records room. He would fight me at first but after the third time he let me go. I read the Records that before I was never allowed to touch and drift into sleep clutching Turns-old land treatises and tithe documents, things that would bore even a Master Archivist to tears.

Nine months pass and I am still entrapped in Lessa's body. I find myself forgetting every day simple things, like my brother's name or the way Trebeth's body felt against me. I let F'lar have me whenever he wants me and I enjoy his soft, passionless kisses and caring touches. I lecture Weyrlings and stupid riders on Thread-fighting tactics, and snarl when Kylara strokes F'lar's arm and croons sweet words into his ear. I am angry all the time and, somehow, this reassures everyone. No one notices when I disappear to the Records room or say that I need time with Ramoth. But that is how it has always been, is it not?

I push away stray memories of my father pulling me onto his lap when I was eight Turns and teaching me to play the gitar. They bother me and Ramoth, too. My father died before I had time to know him- I grew up alone, with drudges and violent men as my taskmasters. My childhood was loveless before F'lar. He holds me and reassures me when I dream of the Thread that left a hideous scar across my back that I have never ridden a flaming dragon into Threadfall and that Ramoth would never let me get hurt.

I smile when F'lar cuddles me and strokes my engorged belly. We will have our first child soon, he whispers. I am so happy.

Two more months pass. The pregnancy is going badly. Pain wracks me as my body fights the baby like a poison. Mornings are spent heaving into a bucket and nights with F'lar kneading my aching calves. My ankles are swollen and I can barely walk. I tell myself, _this is nothing compared to your life before the Weyr, you can handle this, Lessa, queenrider of Benden_, and I do not complain.

I have nightmares of the death of a watchwher, the only thing I loved before Ramoth. He died protecting me. He was a stupid, ugly creature but I loved him. I cried for candlemarks one cold, winter night, Turns after his death. Ramoth put her great golden wing around my tiny frame and rumbled to me, washing the pain of his absence away. Sometimes, the watchwher in my dreams is blue, a rich cerulean shade, but I shake that off as part of the nightmare. Watchwhers are always brownish-bronze colors. Regardless, the ache in my heart is stronger those nights that the dead watchwher is blue. I do not know why.

One day, when the kicking babe in my stomach keeps me from rest, I sift through my trunk, looking for some needlework to occupy my tired mind. I move furs and dresses aside, and find scraps of hide crumpled against the side of my trunk. I smooth them out and read the clumsy scrawls. They seem to be lists but the handwriting is not mine. It is large and drifts across the page, telling no coherent story. The lack of order disturbs me and I wonder if they belong to F'lar. Two names show up again and again, Trebeth- I know him as a blue dragon in R'gan's wing- and J'mil. I frown, scanning the lists again and again.

"F'lar, are these yours?" I ask, waving them in his half-asleep face.

He shakes his head and rolls over. I finger the lists but exhaustion wins out and I decide they must be parts of the lists I used to write to learn every rider's name in the Weyr. Though why I would have gone so far in depth for one rider is beyond me. I toss the lists in the fire and forget them.

A full Turn passes and I am a new mother. My Felessan, my little miracle child, lies in my arms when I am well enough to see him. Ramoth nearly went _between_ during the birth. I lay in death's grip for a sevenday after Felessan fought his way out. But I love him and take every chance the foster mother gives me to cradle him. F'lar stands at my side, proud of our little boy.

I sit out in the sun one day and let my little boy take in the dragons flying above. He gurgles and points up at the flashes of bronze and brown. I grin and take his little hand, pointing out Mnementh and Canth, F'nor's brown. Felessan's little eyes follow their mighty forms.

A green flips prettily in the air. _Koleth_, I think, recognizing her, _lifemate to J'mil_. I blink, then, as a wave of longing washes over me. A memory of helping J'mil oil her, the two of us smiling a little too long at one another, flashes through my mind. Impossible: Koleth was from Mnementh's Hatching, I never knew her as a Weyrling.

Felessan's foster mother takes him from my grasp and tells me to get some rest. My time with my son has tired my body. I nod and ignore the tears slipping down my cheek. The women say that you get sad after a birth sometimes, for no reason at all. Anything can set you off, even something as little as a shoe out of place. Even a green, it seems.

I curl up in my bed that night and watch the shadows of the fire against the weyr wall. The movements are calming. F'lar wraps an arm around my waist and presses his face against my shoulder. I lean into him and sleep, dreaming of a mating flight in which Ramoth is the pursuer instead of the pursued and it is a pretty green flying fast away from us.

ØØØ

Sharp shouting wakes me. My eyes open and close again in pain. My chest feels dull and I cannot feel myself breathing. Wet, heavy cloths are spread across my side. I feel pinned to the bed. Light from too many glows make even the insides of my eyelids bright.

I open my mouth to ask where I am and a moan escapes. Words tumble out as useless sounds and cool hands grasp my aching head. Someone plants a kiss to my forehead. I can hear crying all around me.

"You're awake," a familiar voice sobs and arms encircle me, clutching me tight.

I give in, confused. Why is everyone crying? My eyes open. I squint at the faces surrounding my bed. My Wingmates, O'rim, L'mevn, R'gan, and others. My heart tightens. I am me again, D'wer. I reach my mind out and Ramoth's does not answer. I sigh in a mixture of relief and happiness, and lie back against the bed. It was only a dream, a nightmare brought on by fellis juice, perhaps.

A cup is offered to me and I drink as J'mil holds the back of my head. When I am done, he sits upon the bed and pulls me into his lap. Hot tears mingle with my hair.

I glance at the others around me. Only one pair of eyes catch mine and even R'gan looks away after a moment.

"What is it?" I whisper, looking up at J'mil.

He shudders against me and says something I cannot hear. I stare piteously at my fellow riders. Their eyes are red and they seem somewhat defeated. The drink that J'mil gave me must have been laced with fellis juice because I stare at them bemusedly, uncomprehending of everything around me. R'gan looks at me and takes my hand in his own. His eyes look directly into mine and I muse that he really is not a terribly good-looking man.

"D'wer," he says softly, "You have been asleep for three sevendays. You hit a Clump of Thread coming out of _between_ and it ate into your side pretty badly. You barely made it through."

I stare at him and smile.

"But I'm awake now," I say, a smile lighting up my face, "I had the oddest dream-"

R'gan's face clouds over in an unreadable expression. J'mil cries and holds me tighter, almost painfully. He is so warm and my body feels so warm. It was just a very peculiar dream that I was the Weyrwoman. Just a dream.

"D'wer," R'gan says, his hand clenching mine in his strong grasp, "When you did not wake up, Trebeth-"

"Trebeth-" I murmur happily.

"Trebeth," he says again, "Became very upset. You were asleep and no one knew if you were ever going to wake again, and Trebeth tried to reach you and he couldn't."

"But I'm right here."

"You weren't two sevendays ago. D'wer, Trebeth went _between_."

"Where'd 'e go," I drawl stupidly, my tongue loose in my mouth from the fellis, "Is 'e back yet?"

J'mil's cries hit my ears loudly.

"Honey," he whispers, "Trebeth isn't coming back. He's gone."

"Gone?" I slur, my mind as loose as my mouth.

"Dead," R'gan says.

His eyes close in pain. I look at my Wingmates and only find the pain reflected there as well. Gone? A dragon cannot be gone. Trebeth had to come back, he would not leave me, not unless-

ØØØ

When R'gan slipped poison nettle extract into the dragonless rider's drink that night, no one said anything. The man, Dower, was barely alive, his wounds taxing his body's reserves to the point of emaciation. His weyrmate had watched him as he had done for the last few sevendays, only leaving for food and Threadfall.

J'mil mourned Dower's death but even he agreed it was for the best. Dower would likely have only tried to kill himself once he had truly understood that Trebeth was gone. Ramoth never knew her part in the dream that kept D'wer alive even after his Trebeth went _between_.


End file.
